


El Capitán

by llaras



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Grown-up Scoobies, Pancakes, no smut yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:21:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llaras/pseuds/llaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor and Dawn have their own adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The start of...something? This is very much unfinished.

The sky looks like cheap colored glass. Unreal. Unrelieved. The clouds don't even mar its surface. They are only wanderers, after all. The huge rock in front of him almost seems to touch the sky. Almost. It looks like some weird thing out of a fantasy, like part of a fortress that has gone to ruin.

She is sitting about twenty feet behind him, head buried in the map. Wearing that ridiculous wide-brimmed hat she saw in town and just _had_ to have.

"Are we even close?" he asks. "Dawn?"

He turns back to see if she has passed out from the heat. They brought at least their combined body weight in water, well _he_ brought it, but they've gone through half the bottles already and it's barely past noon.

She's fine though, just completely absorbed in trying to puzzle out their destination. She's gotten them this far, he'll grant her that. He took one look at the directions on the plane and decided he was just fine with being the brawn on this trip. Not that she'd ever give him any credit for intelligence. A Master's degree in History apparently isn't all that impressive to a woman with several degrees who can speak at least ten languages fluently, half of them being dead and one not even spoken in this dimension.

"I'm sure this is the right place." She raises her hand up absently to twirl a lock of hair, forgetting that she had cut off most of it just weeks ago.

He liked it better long.

"I'm going to walk around a bit." He grabs his backpack and pulls out a dry bandana, wetting it with some of their precious water before tying it around his head. "You'll be okay here for," he looks at his watch, "thirty minutes or so?"

She finally looks up. "Um." Bites her lip. "Yeah. Only," Pauses. "what kind of snakes do you think they have around here?" She looks around at the rocks and scrub as if one is going to slide out into the open at that very moment.

He chuckles a little and tosses the half empty water bottle in the air, deftly catching it behind his back. "Don't worry," he says, "they won't be coming out when it's this hot and I won't be gone that long. I promise I won't let any sneak up on you."

She frowns at him. As usual. "I wasn't worried, Connor." She reaches into her bag and pulls out a dog-eared book that was probably written before his grandparent's grandparents time. "There's a spell in here we can use to help refine the search and it calls for the skin of a venomous snake. I was thinking maybe you could be on the lookout?" Another frown as she peers up at him from beneath the edge of the hat.

"Yeah. Sure. One nasty biting snake coming right up. No problem," he says under his breath as he turns and starts walking towards the rock. He doesn't bother to see what her response is to that. She's probably half forgotten the conversation already.

Why did he volunteer for this?


	2. Chapter 2

She's barely looked up from her short stack of pancakes since they were set in front of her just minutes ago, grazing and chewing contentedly like some sort of animal long denied Spring grass. Slathered with butter and drenched in fake maple syrup, they make his teeth hurt with their mere presence. She's got that look of concentration she often gets when she's trying to figure something out, and Connor knows from experience that no dinner conversation will be had this evening.

"Hungry, huh?" he asks with a grin as she shovels another forkful down. 

She doesn't even notice the drips of syrup that are now decorating the front of her last clean t-shirt. Well, last one until their laundry is done drying at the little laundromat across the street from the diner, anyways. And why the hell was it such a big deal that he throw in a couple of items with her load? They weren't any more dirty than her things and it's not like they have pockets full of money for this trip. Giles was reluctant to even let them go, believing it was just a wild goose chase. Only Buffy's intervention saved the venture from being scrapped altogether, one obscure mention in an even more obscure text was not really enough to justify spending the Council's money on. Especially since they have so many Slayers to feed and clothe now. It's not like Dawn is sure what the artifact does or even if it _is_ real.

She mumbles something at him before wiping her mouth with her napkin, then pulls her hand back in surprise at the gooey mess. She eyes his pristine napkin, he hasn't touched it or his dinner yet, and glances away, looking for a waitress.

"Here." He offers it up to her. "I'm not hungry anyway. I'll go get some more and maybe a box to put my dinner in." Chicken fried steak had sounded interesting and maybe a little exotic, but now that he sees what it was, he's lost what little appetite he came in with.

"Why aren't you eating?" She takes the napkin from him and wipes her hands and mouth again. Then she looks down at her shirt and gasps in dismay.

"Use this." He pushes his untouched glass of water over. She just looks at him, expressionless. "What?" he asks.

"I said, why aren't you eating?" She looks back down at her shirt and resumes her clean up.

"Well, I did eat all those granola bars earlier..."

She grimaces in reply and he chuckles to himself remembering Miss Smarty-pants and her cry of dismay when she realized that her two chocolate bars had completely melted in her bag. He had barely refrained from cracking a joke then as it was. You'd think she'd know that melty things weren't a good snack when you went hiking in the desert. He offered her a granola bar from his own stash, but she turned away and sniffed and said she wasn't that hungry after all.

"Well, fine. Whatever," she says as she turns back to her meal. And through a mouthful of pancakes,"if you're not going to eat, you could go see if the laundry is done."

Yes, ma'am. Will do, ma'am. He resists the urge to salute and leaves her there, half hoping she chokes on the sugary mess she's so fond of. But only half.


	3. Chapter 3

Icy. Cold. Aloof. Frigid. Like dunking your head in a clear glacier stream. That's what it's like when he tries to be friendly with her. Not _overly_ friendly. She's made it clear that she has no interest in him like that. Not that he does. Have interest, that is. Not really. But it would be nice if they could sit and talk like normal people. Hell, he's even tried to chat with her about her thesis on Hm'dar and the Axe of Power. And really, he could give a shit.

But no, Dawn has no interest in making friends. Not that she doesn't have friends. Her and the rest of the Scoobies are a close-knit group. Sure, they'd been friendly enough when he showed up the year before, fresh out of school and travelling around Europe before settling on a job. He'd been all over the Continent already, toured battlefields and castles, visited tombs and museums. It was something he'd always wanted to do, but had always been too busy for. His last stop had been London before going back to California, and he'd promised his dad that he'd drop in on "the old gang" before coming home.

That quick visit turned into a lengthy one, which eventually turned into a job offer. Giles was keen on recruiting him in his Watcher's program, but Connor had his fill of giggling supergirls after just a few days. Though it was fun to go out on patrol with them sometimes. Kicking demon ass never really got old.

He was welcomed into the core group by everyone. Everyone but Dawn, that is. He'd known Spike from before, when Spike worked with Angel at the evil law firm. But he'd only heard stories of the others: Xander, whose bravery in the face of sure defeat impressed his dad so much, especially since the man had no superpowers or magic to draw on. He'd been a little surprised to see the eyepatch, but it looked pretty cool. Dangerous. Willow, the super powerful witch, who wasn't nearly as scary as he thought she'd be. She baked excellent cookies too. Giles, the former librarian who was rebuilding the watcher's Council from the ground up. Doing a damn good job of it too as far as Connor could see. And Buffy. Angel never really talked about her to Connor, but he knew a bit of their history just from what he could glean from casual conversation and what wasn't spoken. She actually scared him a little bit.

Dawn was the last of the group he met. She had been away on some archaeological dig and just appeared one night at dinner, sitting down at her usual place as if she'd never been gone, never even glancing at Connor. All of the others jumped up and hugged her and fussed at her and somehow in the excitement and confusion no one thought to introduce them. He didn't think she realized he was there until he ran into her in the hall later that night.

"So, you're Angel's son." She had an armful of towels and was headed in the direction of the bathroom. She had a blue robe on. And cat slippers.

"Yeah. I'm..." he started.

But she flipped her hair and said, "Nice to meet you," over her shoulder as she continued on.

Maybe it was the flipping of the hair that did it.


	4. Chapter 4

There's a crack in the ceiling. It starts from the corner by the tiny bathroom and stretches across to the corner by the door like a river headed to the sea. He follows the smaller offshoots as they stream towards opposite walls and wonders how long the crack has been there. Good thing the motel doesn't have two floors, that ceiling would never survive the kind of pounding his neighbors are giving their bed. And he's pretty sure they're on the side of the room furthest from him too.

Connor picks up the remote and turns up the volume on the television again. He's not really watching the movie, but it does help drown out the noise from the couple next door. Someone screaming,"Pumpy! Pumpy!" is not really the sexiest thing in the world. Maybe he'll take a walk. He looks at the clock radio next to the bed and considers. It's still pretty early.

The phone next to his ear rings suddenly and he jumps up, fumbling to turn down the volume and grab a plastic cup of lukewarm soda before he spills it all over the bedspread.

"The ice machine isn't working." Dawn. Of course.

"Yeah. I know," is all he says. What does she want him to do about it?

"Does your tv have to be so loud? I can hear it through the wall. I thought you had, like superhearing or something."

He glances over at the wall he shares with the supersexed neighbors from Hell. Quiet. Finally.

"Um, sorry?" He doesn't really know what else to say. He's certainly not mentioning _that_ to her.

All he gets in return is a sigh. Then silence.

"Hey," he says, "do you want to do something?" Well, that sounded pathetic. "I mean," he tries again, "it's not like we have to get up early or anything."

She's quiet for a few seconds, then, "Like what?" she asks.

"I don't know. We could play some cards or something."

"Cards?" she asks in a tone like he's suggesting something crude.

"Yeah. I've seen you play cards before. With Spike." He grins. "And I won't let you win like he does."

Her voice raises. "He doesn't let me win!" When he doesn't respond she says again, a bit more calmly, but certainly firm, "He _does not_ let me win."

"Sure, whatever." He shrugs. He can picture her there in the room next door with that _look_ on her face. He holds back a laugh.

"Fine," she says. "I'll be over in a half hour or so. After I take a shower." Great, like he needs that image. Wet, naked girl. Those long legs. Her eyes closed as she raises her hands up to rinse the shampoo out of her dark hair. And her breasts...

"Connor?" She sounds exasperated.

"Huh?" He banishes the image as readily as he can, but he imagines what her skin would smell like all warm and clean and...

"I said, did you rent the metal detector?"

"Oh yeah. Yeah, I did." He presses a palm to the fly of his jeans. He may need a shower before she comes over too.


End file.
